Catching a break
If you haven’t heard the cheers, Paul LoDuca went down to injury yesterday. 4-6 weeks. At the same time though, supposed back-up catcher Johnny Estrada went on the DL as well. Uh oh. Even I, with shrew-like shovel hands rather than human fingers, knows that 2-2=0. Fate has forced the Nats to do what most fans wanted, and that’s play Jesus Flores at catcher. But wait! There’s a fly in the ointment, a monkey in the wrench, and his name is Wil Nieves.
Wil is batting .343 / .410 / .457 currently. The team has a 5-3 record with him starting behind the plate. While Flores is still designated the “catcher of the future”, could Wil be the “catcher of now”? Short answer - no. Long answer - Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
The problem is, despite what you see, Wil can’t hit. His last three minor league season read like a retelling of Endy Chavez’s career
2005 - 102 games, .289 /.313 /.395
2006 - 88 games, .259 / .298 /.346
2007 - 27 games, .256 / .306 / .344
That’s in AAA folks. He’s had a couple of ok years if you look far back enough but some of those can be attributed to being in the PCL a league that made Terrmel Sledge look like Babe Ruth. In the majors he hasn’t broken the mythical .500 OPS barrier yet, though in admittedly only about 150 total at bats across 4 years. No patience, “eh” power.
Maybe this is just a fluke year, a Brady Anderson type 50HR season? I can’t rule that out. We need to check if things are clicking for him or if he is getting lucky. There are a couple of stats we can use to objectively see if Wil is batting well or just catching some breaks, Line Drive Percentage and Batting Average for Balls in Play. Intuitively you know that hitting line drives, as opposed to ground balls or fly balls, means you are making good contact so you want that number to be high. You also can tell (because you are all terribly bright) that it doesn’t matter alot if Albert Pujols or Willie Harris puts a ball in play , it’s going to have roughly the same chance of being fielded and turned into an out. Notice I say “roughly” because there is a lot of room in there since Albert is more likely to hit the ball harder, but is should generally be the same. You are looking for those dramatically below or way above the league average because these are likely to be players getting some bounces or hitting the ball right at people.
Again: LD% high, BABIP about league average or below = good hitter
Nieves:
LD% 7.4% (league average 20%)
BABIP: .423 (league average .295)
Uh oh. If you look a little further you see Wil is hitting a ton of groundballs. So in reality he’s just finding the holes. Hitting them where they ain’t. But that’s a lot more to do with luck than skill. This guy is due for a rough spell.
[For the curious - no Nat is exceptionally lucky with BABIP. Among the Healthy Nats, Nick (.229), Austin Kearns (.238) and Belliard (.239) should improve somewhat]
For the Nats Nieves in a platoon or worse as the preferred starter isn’t a smart choice, it should be Flores or bust. Flores hasn’t been making a strong case in AAA, but what are you going to do? The alternative is not a viable one.
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13 Responses to “Catching a break”
May 9th, 2008 at 9:07 am
You don’t worry about Flores regressing by being thrown in the deep end too soon? 2 months could be a long time. I don’t know nearly enough to judge whether he’s ready or not, but some smart (presumably) people thought they needed to spend 6+ million because Flores wasn’t ready.
May 9th, 2008 at 9:18 am
Harper - In my last comment, you responded by saying Manny might have sat Odalis because the team isn’t fighting for its playoff life and he wanted to be player friendly. What’s the different here?
The Nats aren’t in a playoff hunt, and by my reading, really have no chance of a moral victory in reaching .500 for the season. So what’s wrong with playing the “hot” player. Especially if, as Steven points out, there’s a chance Flores regresses. The difference between the two can’t be SO big that it swings this team from a just below .500 team to a horrible team, so why not just start Nieves and rotate in Flores? Hey, I’m pulling for Flores to do well, don’t get me wrong. I’d love to have the C of the future in him. One less spot to fill, and he seems like he could be good, but really, if Flores plays 90% of the next 4-6, or 10% of the next 4-6, what’s the difference. And how is this situtation (Managment making a decision on player development) much different than the other (managment making a decision on player happiness?) If anything, the later is more offensive and questionable, I think.
May 9th, 2008 at 9:27 am
Don’t parade on my snow, man!
May 9th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Steven - yeah it’s a concern. You have to think they have people who know better than me, and one could say Flores’ AAA outcome proves that he’s not ready (one could also say he’s reacting to not being in the majors, or that they were simply trying to eliminate a year of free agency and had no opinion on his readiness). But what choice do they have? Sign another catcher out of the scrap that’s available now and have 4 catchers under contract? You think Stan would allow that?
Misschatter - would it help if I gave these numbers?
Gary Bennett LD% 26.7 BABIP .133
Breakout potential!
May 9th, 2008 at 10:08 am
Bryan - let me clarify. I have no problem sticking with the hot hand. In fact I’d rather he keep with Nieves until he cooled down. However the MINUTE he cools down he should go from starter to occasional bench player, not a platoon, not a starter (well I guess if he goes 2 months without cooling down you can revisit this). I assume that will happen soon, so I’m speaking more a week or so down the line. What the column was more about was whether they found a LITB in Nieves, then who should start tonights game.
Plus you mention the difference between Flores playint 90or 10 percent in these 4-6 weeks. 4-6 weeks is a long time in a baseball season around 1/6th of the season. You don’t want Flores playing only 10% of those games. No one does. They want him to have playing time. And considering Estrada’s injury return at all is up in the air and LoDuca’s already gone out twice - that 4-6 weeks could easily become more. If you bring up Flores, he really should play unless their is a convincing reason otherwise.
May 9th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Just read an SI piece on the young Dbacks team and how they don’t hesitate to bring guys up who they think are mature enough to handle any possible failure.
Now, I’ve kinda argued the opposite side of this today, but my general hunch is that if the guy is so fragile that a little struggle at the majors will set him back, is he really major league material??
May 9th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
There really isn’t a down side to letting Nieves ride out his hot streak is there?
Also, it really isn’t that uncommon to have a defensive minded back-up to your regular starter, who can talk Flores through the defensive weaknesses in his game. Nieves calls a good game, can move in to be Lannan’s personal catcher and be brought in late in the game to protect leads. Sorted. Sure it’s not perfect but no solution is when you have two starters injured.
And as to the argument that Flores will regress. Aren’t our best coaches in the majors? And if not, why the hell not? Surely if the coaches in DC aren’t good enough to help the man develop then the problem is deeper than simply a few injuries. Man I dislike that argument!
May 9th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Perhaps you should take a look at FLORES’ numbers in AAA. At least Nieves can hit .200 down there. Ouch.
May 9th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Oh, and here’s the problem with you LD% stat: Say a hitter is trying to hit it in that gap between the 1st baseman and 2nd basemen. By your analysis, that hitter will be successful if he clears the gap IN THE AIR, but a failure if it EVEN BOUNCES ONCE. That is silly. Groundballs can be “aimed” just as easily as line drives. Not all groundball hits are seeing-eye accidents.
May 9th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
The D-backs are an interesting case and I like that philosophy. Water will reach it’s level. Thing is that they have prospects that proved themselves in AA and AAA that should be good or at least acceptable. For one of those guys to completely bomb out would be the surprise. It’s more of a time commitment to see which they are then a test.
May 9th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Brad - I think the team worries that Flores might never be a major league hitter. Else why not commit to him rather than spend money on a free agent. Once they did the latter it made sense to send Flores down - to get those everyday at bats.
Keith - Yeah LD% isn’t great, but you have to admit that a line drive is going to be a hit more often than a ground ball. Kind of like the BABIP, to me it’s worth noting if it’s significantly different than the average. His LD% is so low that it screams “Not hitting the ball hard”.
May 9th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Does anyone else see this coming? I have a feeling Redding might be a prime June/July trade-for-prospects candidate to some contender. He would be a solid 4-5 starter for some contender come July. Just a thought.
Also, why the hell did Broadway PITCH an inning in Columbus… not sure when it was, but he pitched a scoreless inning (hitting a batter) according to their stat sheet. How desperate are we?
May 9th, 2008 at 10:53 pm
well, since its pretty obvious Broadway can’t make it to the team as a position player, why not have him pitch?
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